Wearable Technology and the State of the Art in Fabrics

Posted on April 15, 2014 by flybrand1976

1-Fullscreen capture 4122014 60152 AMWearable technology, as defined by Wikipedia to the right, integrates electronics into a wearable item, often into conventional apparel. There is often an electronic device, housed in hard plastic shell, that is then combined with conventional fabrics to achieve its function.  Classic examples include; (i) calculator watch, (ii) a chest-strap heart rate monitor integrated with a watch, (iii) Google Glass, and (iv) an electrically powered warming jacket.

Most of the products which catch popular attention involve either ; (i) making the intelligence of the device less noticeable – such that it isn’t in a bulky plastic housing, or (ii) using the existing clothing form factors to deliver new performance.  Fabric technology is a likely method of delivering on these desires.  There are three main rolled-good fabric types; traditional wovens & knits, nonwovens, and membranes.  These can be used on their own or combined to form composites – composites have been a significant area of innovation in apparel and they are the likely source of future innovation in fabric technology.

Traditional Wovens & Knits

The seating fabric on an Aeron chair or the Nike Flyknit shoe are great example of the state of the art in traditional wovens and knits.  These technologies take base yarns (which can have quite elaborate origin stories of its own), and then mechanically integrate them to create a fabric.  Woven carbon fiber is an example of how new performance was brought to this field.  Given many yarns have biological origins (cotton, wool, hemp, etc.), wovens and knits tend to the baseline for ‘environmentally friendly’ measures in this industry.

From an innovation standpoint, novel yarns can be a source of significant improvement – as woven carbon fiber, and the revolution brought on by nylon and other synthetic fibers, has demonstrated.  Combining that capability with continued improvement in the complexity that can be achieved in weaving and knitting, and there is a roadmap for continued improved performance.  For example, take N advanced technology yarns, and then combine them with a novel knitting or weaving process, and the sum of the parts could easily be greater than they were individually.

Nonwovens

This is a highly engineered single-use nonwoven product.

Nonwovens aren’t well known in the general population, but serve as the basis for the explosion in demand of consumer wipes, diapers, and other inexpensive polymer based materials.  Historically, nonwovens haven’t fared well when launched as the true basis of apparel – they have lacked the hand and drape (textile-speak for ‘feel’) that is needed to succeed.

Nonwovens shouldn’t be overlooked as a potential
source of wearable technology innovation for a few reasons:

  • Nonwovens are already widely used as ‘B’ surfaces in many sophisticated garments – high end suits, cold-weather jackets, gloves and
  • Those inexpensive wipes, diapers and hygiene products are very sophisticated and have dramatically improved in performance since their introduction.
  • Because of the many ways nonwovens are made, there are many points of insertion for new technology.
  • Nonwovens manufacturers have a history of technical innovation and engineering.

    Nonwovens_Table

    Nonwovens combine the fast production speeds of paper with the durability of traditional wovens.

Membranes

gore-tex

Gore fabrics in The North Face apparel.

Gore defined and pioneered the use of membranes in apparel with their high water barrier PTFE membrane Gore-Tex branded composite fabrics, which were made most popular through their end customer, The North Face.  Membranes are largely developed for materials science applications first, then cross-applied into apparel where volumes (measured in area) can be higher, but more fickle.

Advanced membranes can provide performance in many ways – their primary use so far has been to provide a degree of breath-ability while preventing the wearer from getting wet.  Membranes are crucial to battery technology – they form the separator that prevents the anode and cathode from reacting together too quickly.  It could be here that they bring the quickest benefits to wearable technology.

Composites

Gore-Tex doesn’t sell just a fabric – it sells a fabric composite consisting of two membranes (one PTFE, one polyurethane) that are laminated between an outer layer, which is often a woven, and an inner layer, which can be a tricot (fancy knit) or even a nonwoven.  Creating this composite requires significant art and manufacturing experience – it also enables the manufacturer and user to get the best of all the individual layers.

Rather than having the performance of a single fabric, a portfolio of characteristics is brought to the user.  This makes the composite the most likely enabler of advanced performance: Take a woven with an advanced yarn, brought together with a purposely designed weave, attach a high performance membrane and combine with a novel nonwoven and you should be the right technology to bare.

 

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Nanofibers: Textiles Fourth Great Gift to Medicine

Posted on April 15, 2014 by flybrand1976

Sprayable bandages with super-wound healing capabilities.  Dialysis components small enough to be worn by the patient.  These are just two of the life science product concepts using nanofibers (“NF”) which have captured the attention of the popular scientific press – and this doesn’t include many of the more near term uses of nanofibers in life science applications such as tissue scaffolds, improved performance wound care bandages and higher performance facemasks and garments for physicians and other care providers.

Gartner's Hype Cycle is a well known framework for understanding technology adoption.

Nanofibers industrial foundation should reduce the impact of Gartner’s Hype Cycle for life science applications.

The number of applications that can use NF in life sciences is growing quickly.  With a century of scientific research behind it, electrospun nanofibers are actually well prepared to grow with demand – the industrial infrastructure already exists such that industry can keep pace with the needs of the medical industry. As it grows, it looks increasingly like the significance of nanofibers will be on par with two previous significant technological advancements introduced to the world of medicine after having been pioneered by the textile supply chain.

Gift 1: Dyes and stains

With Leeuwenhoek’s improvements to the microscope, new challenges emerged as scientists began to explore the newly revealed structures.  It was hard to tell what was what.  Fortunately, scientists were able to pull from the existing textile toolkit and evaluate the growing library of dyes.

“I have therefore published the method, although I am aware that as yet it is very defective and imperfect; but it is hoped that also in the hands of other investigators it will turn out to be useful.”  Hans Christian Gram (1853-1938)

Gram’s original goal was to determine whether or not lungs were infected – it would evolve into a way to separate different strains of bacteria.  Dyes were a well known art and an early driver for advanced forms of chemical synthesis.  Different dyes had a wide variety of chemical structures, giving the early microscopists many potential options.  Once Gram had introduced the concept, the art would flourish and eventually lead to antibiotics, where sulfa would then emerge as the second gift from textiles to medicine.

Gift 2: Antibioitcs & sulfa

When Gerhard Domagk and his colleagues at Bayer first determined the potential medical benefits of antibiotics in fighting disease and began development of what became Prontosil, the first Sulfa drug in 1932, it was initially believed that the sulfa had to be tied to a dye.[1]  Eventually, it was determined that basic Sulfa was sufficient.  Sulfa was widely available, used as part of textile processing and had expired patents.  The process had been originally developed in 1908 by Austrian Chemist Paul Gelmo and patented by Bayer – providing the recipe to the public domain and providing them with an expired patent for defense.

The medical impact was huge, anyone could make sulfa and the manufacturing process was well established.  For these first two gifts there are several similar traits; (i) significant medical impact, (ii) a large library of components already developed, (iii) there was an existing industrial supply chain, (iv) there was little barrier to competition.   The gift made a difference, it came in many, trust-worthy flavors, and anyone could get it.  Electrospun NF share many of these characteristics.  So does the third gift – the nonwoven.

Gift 3: Nonwovens

Walk into a modern hospital room and you are surrounded by nonwovens.  The care-givers, physicians and nurses, are covered in nonwoven garments to protect themselves and the patient.  The filters, both air, blood and other liquid that keep a patient alive are made possible with nonwoven layers.  The MERV 16 filters commonly used are also nonwovens.

Nonwovens_Table

Nonwovens have the resilience of traditional wovens and the low cost of papers.

Nonwovens emerged with significant investment from the polymer and fiber industries and they found a home throughout the hospital.  They were; (i) low cost, (ii) available in many flavors, (iii) disposable and recyclable if needed, and (iv) robust and dependable. Again, all characteristics which made their adoption inevitable.  Their impact is more along the line of the dyes, rather than the medical revolution caused by sulfa and the following antibiotics, but their impact is no less important.

Gift 4: Nanofibers?

NF adoption in life science applications is growing.  Solution electrospinning does not damage live cells and works with many polymers which have widely characterized behavior in the human body.  The webs formed have very uniform, and very fine, pores. This allows small things to flow and stop bigger things – further the pore size has demonstrated its attractiveness as a bed for growing cells.  The NF web can be coated with other known components used in biology –receptor proteins used in chromatography or even antibiotics delivered in specific doses.

Individually this list of performance criteria is significant – in combination the performance that will be enabled is over whelming.  There is over a 100 years of history in electrospinning – it is a well characterized process with known performance and theoretical underpinnings.

Industrial nanofiber production installations are common and lab scale equipment can be purchased easily at market-based prices.  There is considerable literature in academia, intellectual property and industry about what methods are practiced, what recipes are used and their commercial and performance implications.

It is not yet a given that nanofibers are the clear fourth gift from textiles to medicine, but many of the signs are there.

Notes

[1]  This is best covered in Hager’s excellent book, The Demon Under the Microscope.

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NanoH2O Acquisition: The Product

Posted on April 14, 2014 by flybrand1976
1-IMG_0935

Membrane housings in a Reverse Osmosis facility.  From Baker’s Membrane Technology and Applications, 2nd Edition

On Friday, March 14, Korean industrial concern LG Chem announced they were purchasing NanoH2O, an RO membrane maker that took its first external funding at the peak of the CleanTech bubble in 2005 for $200 MM.  Industrial technology has proven to have a much longer adoption cycle than these initial investors expected – looking at the dynamics of the current NanoH2O business can help us understand how the initial investment assumptions in 2005 led to the current state of affairs in 20104. As with any business, we must start with the company’s product to understand how their customers work with them (from the company website as of 3/16/2014):

NanoH2O, Inc. develops, manufactures and markets (1) reverse osmosis (RO) membranes that lower the cost of desalination. Based on breakthrough (2) nanostructured materials and industry-proven polymer technology, NanoH2O’s thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) QuantumFlux membranes improve desalination energy efficiency and productivity.

0.  The customer buys a membrane cartridge

The customer purchases a membrane cartridge from NanoH2O that they load into a housing in a multi-million (and often several billion) dollar reverse osmosis facility, from which they produce usable (either drinkable or industrial) water from saline water.  The customer pays per cartridge, but there may be service components, discounts based on large volume purchases, and long term supply commitments.  The customer’s goal is to get a cubic meter of water as cheaply as possible, and NanoH2O’s solution, in the form of that membrane cartridge, is part of their calculus in driving that cost as low as possible.

Membrane cartridge like those made by NanoH2O, and what would be loaded into the housings shown above.

Membrane cartridge like those made by NanoH2O, and what would be loaded into the housings shown above.

1.  Reverse osmosis (“RO”) and desalination (aka “Desal”)

There are three methods used in liquid filtration – RO is a special case of nano-filtration and is in general the most sophisticated and specialized.  The simplest is particle filtration – think of a metal sieve where we want to pull out pieces of gravel and then let water pass through.  Microfiltration is the same process, but at smaller scale.  The US FDA has clear guidance on how microfiltration can be used for the sterilization of medicines and therapeutics. In most micro-filtration activities, all of the liquid passes through the filter, and the filter after it is clogged is then scrapped/recycled.  This is very different than the process used in RO, where only some of the fluid passes through the membrane, and the fluid that does not pass through becomes more concentrated – in desalination, the more concentrated fluid has even more salt after than it did before, while a portion of the water flows through the membrane and has its salt removed.

Types of Liquid Filtration

Ultrafiltration is more sophisticated than microfiltration – the particulate we are looking to remove is much smaller, and in many circumstances may be considered ‘dissolved’ into the liquid.  Here the particles we are removing are 0.1 um and smaller.  In most filtration activities we look for pressure to improve the system’s performance – higher pressure across the filter media / membrane allows the process to occur more quickly, but it does so at the cost of more energy.  As we get into ultrafiltration, many processes require higher pressure in order to function at all. With those higher pressures, we encounter higher capex costs in our system.  The mechanical components of an ultrafiltration system start to increase – this is important in the case of NanoH2O, as it means the relative value of an improved membrane start to decrease as the CapEx of the system in which the membrane will function start to increase. Nano-filtration, of which RO is a special case, is the removal of small molecules from a fluid stream – some processes are separating nitrogen from oxygen – there are many, many flavors of commercially interesting nano-filtration processes and a bewildering array of technical approaches to achieve the needed economics.  RO is unique in that it is widely known by the public and the market for such materials has been growing since its initial invention.  For RO to work, water is put under pressure and pushed against a membrane – a small portion of that water passes through the membrane and is thus ‘purified’, while the remaining water, and all of the salt, is kept on the other side of the membrane and becomes concentrated. A water molecule is only 3 angstroms in size – and the salts we are pulling out are even smaller.  To do this best requires high pressure – again making the entire system cost much higher than the cost of the membranes across which the ions are separated.

2.  Nanostructured materials and industry-proven polymer technology

NanoH2O makes a membrane cartridge – the heart of their technology is the membrane that goes into that cartridge.  Industry-proven polymer technology simply states that the company isn’t attempting to introduce radically different chemistry into the membrane.  This makes sense.  If you’re spending $500 MM on a new facility, your desire to take a risk with a never-before-proven polymer is low.  The customer wants to improve performance, but they don’t want to make radical leaps to achieve that performance. When NanoH2O says, “Nanostructured materials,” they are doping the polymers used in their membranes with some type of structure that improves its performance once it is in the RO production facility.  This can be seen in their patent literature (example here is WO 2009129354 A2), which often calls out specific formulations of different nanoparticulate or additives to enhance performance.  This gets to be a blurry realm, when combining ‘nanotechnology’ (herein meaning nanoparticulate) and polymer chemistry – when the two components are often close to the same size.

1-IMG_09233.  Thin-film nanocomposite

This is an industry standard term for the type of membranes that are used in RO.  The membrane itself is a very thin, precisely made material.  It is often made on top of a conventional nonwoven or even on top of a lower grade microporous membrane.  While this term may sound advanced, it is commonly used in the industry.

All RO membranes are thin film composites – many of the newer water or desal start-up technologies try to get around the use of thin film membranes using other methods.  This may itself turn out to be the big debate about new water systems – are they able to move beyond thin film, or should they continue to invest in 10%, 20% or higher improvements.  This is similar to challenges in the semiconductor industry where challenges at both sides of the size continuum – fine scale lithography and larger 450 mm wafers, force the industry to make big, long term decisions on how they deploy capital.

Closing

The product is a membrane cartridge that an end customer buys in order to get clean water at a cheaper price per cubic meter than their other options.  NanoH2O doesn’t sell the water.  They don’t sell the RO system.  They sell a component that feeds into that industrial supply chain in order to help the customer get what they really want.  The performance delivered by NanoH2O helps deliver either more water, lower total capex, or cheaper water, but it is essential to understand that in an industrial supply chain NanoH2O doesn’t hold its fate in its hands – demand for its product must be fostered at multiple points in the supply chain.

All of these factors together make for a complex adoption process that takes time – time that initial investors in this space didn’t fully appreciate.

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Nonwovens in Tech News: Feminine Care & Apparel

Posted on March 17, 2014 by flybrand1976

Working with industrial technology often feels like being behind stage at a play – you’re able to see all of the behind the scenes action that enables modern life.  Often times articles in the popular press, and particularly tech news, will cover areas that reveal some of those special methods that go on which are hidden from view.  Often times the revelations aren’t 100% right.

Apparel


Charlie Stross is one of my favorite science fiction authors and bloggers and he recently covered some PR from Fabrican, which delivers a spray-can nonwoven.  The video says the can holds a suspension of polymers, fibers and glass fibers (I am cringing watching the models receive the spray without wearing a facemask) and uses some sort of solvent which dries when sprayed.

In Stross’s article, The Revolution will not be Hand Stitched, he talks about how this could revolutionize many parts of society – and indeed, nonwovens have had a huge impact on the modern industrial world.  The innovation of the Fabrican team is making the nonwoven a point of access product – rather than centralize production at a large PGI or Ahlstrom facility, they encapsulate the materials in a can and let the user determine where it will be used.

The argument being made is that miniaturization of nonwoven production methods will lead to greater comfort, and therefore greater use in garments.  Efforts to bring nonwovens into the apparel setting (beyond the common jacket liners and high end technical gear) have not yet met with success, but do continue in niche applications such as medical barriers.  I suspect that the primary drivers of comfort will come in the way that the nonwovens are made into composites, and that this ‘composite forming for comfort’ is more likelky to be driven in a conventional industrial manufacturing setting.

Spray-can nonwovens can have a big impact, which will most likely be driven in healthcare by applications such as wound care where custom fit bandages could improve outcomes and improve patient comfort.  This topic is even hit on in the fashion show video above.  Enabling point of use nonwoven application in industrial settings, which Stross discusses, could also be disruptive – but with the cost of a basic meltblowing line already very low, I feel that any wave of innovation done at the can level will only serve as a proof of concept for more sophisticated manufacturers.

Feminine Care in India

The Indian Sanitary Pad Revolutionary, covers an inspiring story of an Indian entrepreneur, Arunachalam Muruganantham, who has sought to bring low cost feminine care products to women in his home state by manufacturing locally, addressing significant stigma around hygiene products and focusing on how to sell the product.  What Muruganantham has accomplished from an entrepreneurial, public health and women’s rights standpoint is exceptional.

Photo is from the original BBC article – note the basic wetlaid and rolled good handling gear.

The founder is sourcing cotton and cellulose locally and using women to make the goods in low volumes.  That same labor force also works in distribution.  He has access to cheap raw materials and has done the work to find small scale methods of producing the goods.  Most importantly, he has addressed the social taboos around this market to create demand for a product.   His greatest success is on mastering the channel – whether or not he needs to maintain the manufacturing methods he has established remains to be seen.

The Hacker News commentary is very thorough, with user igul2222 outlining how the 2.5 rupee cost is a near 40% discount to conventional products on the market.  That’s still going to provide a very healthy margin to the large feminine care product makers, who have now read Muruganantham’s playbook and know how to access the market.  Empower individual sales people with a Mary Kay type angle – perhaps even directly using a multi-level marketing program.  As feminine care and nonwovens makers understand the economics and marketing needs of this market, they will invade with dedication and manufacture at scale otherwise not possible. This is like owning a general store in Rogers, Arkansas, prior to the opening of the first Wal-Mart in 1962.

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USA Soccer and Brazil FIFA 2014: Not Just Happy to Be There

Posted on March 15, 2014 by flybrand1976

Photo by John Shapley – grantland.com

ESPN’s football/soccer podcast, “Men In Blazers” interviewed USA Soccer head coach Jurgen Klinnsman at South by Southwest in Austin, TX. At about 30 minutes in, in a light-hearted manner he talks about the US having a fan base that publicly shames players when they lose. He talks about how it isn’t enough for the players to be happy to be there – they have to want to win.

It sounds similar to the challenges encountered by NASA during the shuttle era.  There accomplishments were significant, but there wasn’t a clear mission.

Driving a technology from concept to industrial scale deployment feels much the same way.  In the early days those small wins are significant – you’ve achieved things no one else has done before.  As time goes on and your experience grows, that just isn’t enough.  Those technical achievements have to translate to revenue – the focus of the team has to be on winning, not just showing up.

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Nanofibers in Application: Dialysis using Zeolites in an Electrospun NF Web

Posted on March 14, 2014 by flybrand1976

The popular press has picked up on the publication of,  Fabrication of zeolite–polymer composite nanofibers for removal of uremic toxins from kidney failure patients by a team out of WPI-MANA.  Unfortunately, this article ties together many sensationalist components that are commonly seen with a new materials science.  The researchers have looked at high surface area zeolites to see if they might be effective in detoxifying blood.  They took some of those same zeolites and then used them in an electrospun nanofiber membrane to see if the performance persisted (it did – at 67% of the level of the zeolites out of the NF web).

The researchers then claimed that this would enable ‘wrist-mounted’ blood purification devices that would replace dialysis.  This is a big jump.

There are some gaps between the current state of the research and the wrist-mounted device.

Gap 1: Zeolite performance

I’m not a zeolite expert, but there is no doubt that the heart of this device’s performance lies here in the zeolite component, and not with the polymeric EVOH NF web.  The NF membrane is simply acting as the delivery scaffold to maintain the surface area of the zeolite and to ensure that the zeolites do not move about in the system.

The state of the art in electrospinning is more than sufficient to get the right zeolite into the right form factor – the challenge will be identifying the right zeolite and proving that authoritatively while addressing the other gaps listed below.

Gap 2: Spinning of the Zeolite-Enhanced Web

Scale-up of this process will be challenging, but the fact that it has been done already is a very positive indicator.  Often times, working with academic groups, the challenge comes in transitioning the recipe for its first runs in an industrial setting.  Many of the production and engineering variables that led to the the initial invention may not easily transition to production.

Ensuring that the zeolite mixes well with the EVOH in solution will be important – industrial scale agitation of the nanofiber precursor material will need to be used to keep it in suspension until it is electrospun.  Clumping of the zeolite would reduce the surface area and hurt performance.

Gap 3:  Device design.

bloodfilter

This may represent the appropriate form factor for such of a device – is there space available to do the jobs claimed by the inventors?

The device would have to take blood out of the human body, run it through the NF web, and then return it to the body at the same pressure it was taken out.  Maintaining the pressure of the fluid across the zeolite-enabled NF web will be important.  I am skeptical that this can be done naturally with the blood pressure provided by the human heart – precision pumping and fluid handling are core technologies to enabling the performance of a traditional dialysis unit.

The zeolite-enabled NF membrane may be pleated or deployed in some other setting in order to minimize surface area and begin to address the next gap – product life.

Gap 4: Device capacity.

If we assume that the research confirms that the zeolyte performs well (Gap 1), that we can scale production reliably and cost-effectively (Gap 2), and that we can then get the NF web into an appropriate device (Gap 3) – what will the life of that device be?  Capacity is something that is always a challenge to predict in filter design, and likewise it is difficult to anticipate how long the device here will function.

While there will be a lot of value in this product if it can get all the way to commercialization, it is crucial to evaluate the market opportunities for a 30 minute life device, where the user is frequently changing out cartridges, to one that can last for days or weeks.

Conclusion

As with any piece of scientific or academic research that is picked up by the mainstream media, there are always gaps in interpretation.  This is a product that is likely 3 – 5 years away from some kind of in vivo testing and likely 10 – 15 years away from being a practical application, if it is able to cross the gaps listed above.  The testing gap – in that there are unlikely common testing protocols for techniques that are so new, creates a series of challenges that will further slow adoption.

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Interested in the Carolinas? 12 must read books

Posted on March 14, 2014 by flybrand1976
1-photo 1-001

This portion of the book shelf was perfectly organized for this photo.

North Carolina has been our adopted home since 2001 – I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else (despite all the time I’ve spent on the road for work).  It is an interesting state with a long political, commercial and technical history.

General History

North Carolina: Through Four Centuries is the most thorough conventional history of North Carolina.  Powell begins with the Native American population prior to the arrival of Columbus and takes the reader through the modern age.  

A New Voyage to North Carolina is featured in Powell’s text – written in the days of European settlement, it served as propaganda that led to mass immigration.  Many of the main characters in La Verre’s Tuscarora War below, were attracted to North Carolina by this book.

Looking for Longleaf, by Earley, tells the history of the whole Southeast and North Carolina through the story of one of its most unique native species – the longleaf pine.

The Great Dismal, by Simpson, is like Looking for Longleaf, but focused instead on the Great Dismal swamp found in the state’s NE corner along the coast.

War and Conflict

Tuscarora War, by David La Verre (10 hours) tells the story of a series of raids and battles in North Carolina beginning in 1711.  I’d also listed this book under a list on Revolutionary America.  Understanding the violence, roles of various immigrant groups and dependence on European resources for defense of the common purpose provides a framework for many of the dynamics that would lead to the revolution.

The Highland Scots of North Carolina tells the story of the settlement of North Carolina by the Scottish and brings the tale as far into the future as possible.  It has great detail on the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, which is a must-visit site.

Guilford Courthouse 1781 – the Osprey series is well known for providing excellent detail of battles and military conflict.  For those who aren’t familiar with the Southern front of the Revolutionary War and Nathanael Greene, this is an excellent place to start.  The battlefield is also an excellent visit.

Future

North Carolina in the Connected Age, was published in 2008 and it is startling how dated it is already in 2014.  Written prior to the downturn, the book divides out North Carolina’s industries and tries to lay out a plan going forward.  Known for having both the technology of RTP and its sister states to the NE, North Carolina also has the low cost labor environment of the states to the South which have attracted a resurgence in manufacturing.

Luebke’s Tarheel Politics also helps understand the modern governance structure of North Carolina and the context in which these institutions developed.  There is a more up to date text on this trope, The Paradox of Tarheel Politics, which has a Kindle version available.  I found the sections on the founding and funding of the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina (“MCNC”) which was the progenitor of NC Idea and Unitive, a company I was with, to be very helpful.[1]

Notes:

[1]  MCNC has the honor of holding the sixth oldest .org URL, from January 1987 – only two weeks younger than DARPA itself.

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Filtration in the Popular Media: Chinese Fear for Soil and Food

Posted on March 13, 2014 by flybrand1976

The New York Times recently covered the growing awareness of the pollution problems in China that have come with increased industrialization and growth.  The December 2013 article focused on growing concerns about heavy metals, primarily cadmium, spreading into the food chain and water supply.

  • 1/6 of China’s arable land, nearly 50 million acres, suffers from soil pollution
  • 155 batches of rice tested showed high levels of cadmium, 89 were from Hunan province
  • In 2012 Hunan province produced 17 million tons of rice, 16% of national output
  • 41 percent of the nation’s cadmium pollution as measured by presence in industrial waste water was in Hunan province
  • Officials in Hunan have pledged an annual increase in industrial revenue of 18%
  • Results from a national 2010 soil pollution study have remained unreleased

Pure Cadmium (Cd).

The scope and potential implications of such pollution are significant – the need to begin addressing the problems at their source is equally significant.  Identifying when, where and how the pollution escapes so it can be contained is essential to prevent the problem from growing any further.

Pollution Storage

The article talks about Hunan’s drive to increase its use of its material resources.  More mining and more processing of materials will occur.  It isn’t clear if these materials are being released into the environment at this step or if it occurs later on.  In Europe and the US, there are tight regulations as to how waste from mining operations is treated.  Waste ponds must be lined.  Clear efforts to contain dust clouds which may contain hazardous materials are prescribed.  Given the scope of the problem, it is likely there are problems at this part of the supply chain -unfortunately there isn’t much that filtration can do here.

Pollution from Dry Processing & Refining

1-photo (1)As the mining operations continue, cadmium is released from crushing and other environmental activities.  Picture dust covered facilities that transform big rocks into small rocks.  Here, filtration can do a lot to prevent the release of materials into the atmosphere.  Once facilities are encapsulated, air within the space can be treated with dust cartridge filters.  This is an economically attractive method for producers – they make more money by preventing valuable resources from escaping.

Waste Water

Waste water is a trickier problem.  If we’re dealing with process water, it should be economic to convert what was previously waste into revenue.  It isn’t clear what size the problematic cadmium is – smaller sub 0.40 um materials will need ultrafiltration and RO processes to pull them out of the fluid stream, while larger particles should be be able to be removed with conventional filtration and microfiltration.

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New Products: What We Study

Posted on March 13, 2014 by flybrand1976

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

John Adams, Second President of the United States (1735 – 1826)

When launching new industrial and materials science products based on new technologies there is always something you don’t know.  An unknown customer spec is always around the corner, a testing delay based on scarce resources looms in the future and countless other delays may arise.

Adams’s quote feels very appropriate.

What we do today for our customers to succeed is very different than what we will do tomorrow.  But the reasons we make today’s choices is so that tomorrow’s decisions will stand on our hard earned facts.  Our customers and our company will learn new things in the future, and they will do so based off of the education we go through in the present.

Short cuts do not pay off.

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Define the Mission, then the Vehicle

Posted on March 12, 2014 by flybrand1976

Start with the mission, not with the vehicle.

Pat Duggins’ book Final Countdown, which documents NASA’s move to shutdown the Space Shuttle Program repeats an important aviation and aerospace maxim:

The mission should define the vehicle, not the vehicle define the mission.

Apollo’s mission was to put a man on the moon, hence the Saturn and LEM.  The Wright’s wanted to be the first to fly, and to have a machine which they could use to become better pilots – hence the Wright Flyer.

“It’s a technology in search of a market,” is one of the worst back-handed compliments a start up business can receive.  One of the great lessons promoted the the Lean Startup movement is getting out and understanding what the customer needs.

The mission of a new product is to get adoption, get revenue and then to grow.  If we start with that mission, then it helps us understand what the vehicle needs to look like.  Start with the mission, not with the vehicle.

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